Josef “Jeff” Sipek

QUERY_STRING & mod_rewrite

A few months ago, I needed to make some mod_rewrite rules that did things to the QUERY_STRING. After a lot of searching and unsuccessful attempts, I found this document (local mirror). Some experimenting later, I had it all working nicely.

For example, I’ve got something like:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}    ^page=([0-9]{1,})$
RewriteRule ^/testsite/$       /testsite/page.cgi?seek=%1       [PT,L]

Kids Read Comics

If you are into comics and happen to be near Chelsea, MI (about 15 mins from Ann Arbor, MI) on June 12 & 13, you might want to consider going to Kids Read Comics comic convention. (As the name implies, it’s targeted at a younger crowd but don’t get discouraged by that.)

The guest list looks quite good (at least in my opinion).

Kids Read Comics

Frazz

About two months ago, I got introduced to a fun web comic, Frazz.

I was looking at some of the older ones, and I found one that amused me enough to share with you:
Frazz: May 31, 2008

Trinity Church @ New York, New York

This past Monday, it was a year since I was introduced to a very interesting (and a very English) activity — change ringing. Wikipedia’s Wikipedia article: article has a good summary:

Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called “changes”. It differs from many other forms of campanology (such as carillon ringing) in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody.

Trinity was the first bell tower set up for change ringing that I went to (I think there are about 40 or 50 in all of North America). The bell tower is part of the Trinity church on the intersection of Broadway and Wall St in NYC. Here’s a link that has information about the bells at Trinity. I’ll probably include most of it here, as well as “borrow” some of the photos. (If I don’t say where I got a particular photo, it’s because I took it myself.)

Wall St & Broadway

I tried taking a photo of the church further down the street, but it didn’t go all that well (it was late afternoon, so the church walls were in a shadow, and the sky behind it was bright). So, here’s someone else’s photo that’s from the same perspective as the one I was trying to make:
Trinity tower from Wall Street

Trinity is one of only two towers in North America that has 12 bells (the other is St. James’ Cathedral in Toronto). All the other towers in North America have less (8 bells being the most common). The practice of change ringing is originally from England, and there 12 bells is pretty normal.

These are the “specs” for the Trinity bells (all cast by Taylors, Eayre & Smith in 2006):

Bell Weight Diameter Note
Treble 4-2-11 25 9/16” A
2 5-0-5 26 5/8” G
3 4-3-9 26 3/4” F#
4 5-0-1 28” E
5 5-1-23 29 3/8” D
6 5-3-14 30 5/8” C#
7 6-2-24 32 1/2” B
8 7-3-16 34 7/8” A
9 9-2-10 37 7/8” G
10 12-1-21 41 1/8” F#
11 16-3-9 45 1/2” E
Tenor 23-3-17 51” D

The weight is represented by a triple of numbers. The first is the number of Wikipedia article: hundredweights (1 cwt = 112lbs = approx. 50kg); the second number is the number of quarters (0.25 cwt = 28lbs = 12.7kg); and the third number is the number of pounds (1lb = 0.454kg). So, for example, the tenor is 2677lbs = 1214kg (23*112 + 3*28 + 17 = 2677).

For comparison, the Wikipedia article: Liberty Bell (as recast by Pass and Stowe in 1753) is 18-2-8 (2080 lbs; 943 kg).

Alright, let’s head upstairs into the ringing room. (photo taken from flick).

Stairs

Inside the tower, the ropes to control 12 bells (or however many a change ringing tower may have) are arranged in a circle, so that if a person stands near each rope, they can see all the other ropes easily.

This is what the Trinity ringing room looks like (also taken from flickr):

Ringing Room

You can see the ropes hanging from the ceiling. They are at the back-stroke (more on this later), therefore you can’t see much of them.

Each rope goes though the ceiling, to a wooden wheel that’s affixed to the bell. The whole assembly looks like (this is the tenor from Trinity while still at the foundry):

Trinity’s Tenor

You can easily see the wheel, and the (red) headstock. When a person pulls on the rope, it turns the wheel, which in turn moves the bell.

Anyway, that’s it for the introduction to the Trinity Church bell tower. You’ll have to wait for the next post to learn more about change ringing itself. :P

The Science News Cycle

May 18, 2009: PhD Comics

Webinar

Today, I found out that “webinar” is not a new concoction. The OED tells us:

orig. U.S. Business

A seminar conducted over the Internet, allowing participants to interact with one another in real time.

1997 DM News (Nexis) 8 Dec. 8 The organization of the Webinar’s content and presentation is being handled by Clarify.

2004 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) 18 Apr. E2/6 Participants in the Webinars can e-mail questions to experts, with some addressed during the sessions.

2008 Wall St. Jrnl. 24 June A12 (advt.) Attending our free monthly webinars gives you great exposure to new ideas that can drive your business.

The first mention seems to be from over 11 years ago! I just hope that this “word” disappears soon. :(

In general, I have nothing against new words…well, as long as there is a reason to have them. There is really no reason to add “webinar” to the language as seminar works just as well, if not better.

Roth Pond Regatta 2009

Yesterday, I went to the anual Roth Pond Regatta at Stony Brook. It’s an event where different groups of people race their cardboard and duct-tape boats across a pond. (This was the third time I went, but this year, my participation was limited to taking photos.) Below are some of the more interesting ones, you can always check out the whole gallery (as well as photos from 2007 and 2006; note that the photos haven’t been post processed).

The Stony Brook Computing Society’s boat:
What could it be?

Some other team’s boat…both nice looking and fast:
Dragon!

These folks did not have Dino around:
Flint-mobile

Gargamel (SBCS member):
Gargamel

Getting the head on:
Head-less smurf

Papa Smurf! (note the size of the people in comparison):
Papa Smurf

Another team had fun with special effects:
Dragon with smoke

Then, the races began…

Some boats didn’t make it off the starting line:
Boat Fail

Others did extremely well:
Dragon on water

Papa Smurf is getting old, and isn’t as agile as he once used to be: Papa Smurf on water

Gargamel finds it very amusing:
gargamel enjoying the race

Paddle faster!
Action shot

Trojans nearing the finish line (note that the boat looks somewhat unfinished - the legs aren’t fully painted!)
Trojans

Papa Smurf getting demolished (part of the rules, once you lose, you must dispose of your boat)
Papa Smurf innards

Mummy trying to get to the shore:
Paddling mummy

The dumpster “guardians” using power-tools on Papa Smurf’s head:
Papa Smurf’s head

This is a very small subset of the photos I took…if you want to see more (un-postprocessed) photos, follow the link near the top of this entry.

RHEL 5.4: Now shipping XFS

Wow, it’s about time!

Sources tell me that RHEL 5.4 comes with XFS support. This is good news for all those folks wanting to use filesystems larger than 16TB and not trusting ext4 with their data (I couldn’t blame them). As far as I know, these unfortunate souls have been told to use GFS2 if they wanted a RH supported fs that did more than 16TB. (It’s worth mentioning that ext3 had a 8TB limit until about two years ago, when it got fixed up to support whopping 16TB.)

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